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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24359857">xoxo, Annette</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseisaRoseisaRose/pseuds/RoseisaRoseisaRose'>RoseisaRoseisaRose</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Everyday I'm Drabbling [11]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Drabble, F/M, all you need to know is that felix is really dumb, time-skip gap</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 09:54:14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,929</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24359857</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseisaRoseisaRose/pseuds/RoseisaRoseisaRose</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Felix receives a letter from Annette. The contents make him anxious.</p><p> </p><p>Written for the Felannie discord drabble challenge; this week's prompt was "Hugs".</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Annette Fantine Dominic/Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Felix Hugo Fraldarius &amp; Sylvain Jose Gautier</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Everyday I'm Drabbling [11]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1649380</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>121</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Those Who Drabble in the Dark</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>xoxo, Annette</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Pack your bags; we have to leave immediately.”</p><p> </p><p>To say that Felix Fraldarius kicked the door down as he made this proclamation would be inaccurate, as there were no doors to the Morning Sitting Room of Fraldarius Castle, where Sylvain had been taking a perfectly acceptable nap on a perfectly acceptable couch beneath a perfectly acceptable sunbeam. But everything about Felix’s manner <em> implied </em> that he had just kicked the door down to enter the room, which gave a certain gravitas to his words, regardless.</p><p> </p><p>Sylvain quickly sat up and grabbed for his copy of <em> Reason in an Age of Unreason </em>, his ostensible excuse for skipping training that morning. He was too slow to hide that it had slipped from his hands and fallen to the floor when he nodded off around page 3, but Felix appeared not to notice, marching into the room with enough authority and purpose that Sylvain could almost imagine him leading a battalion someday without complaining nonstop.</p><p> </p><p>“Leave where?” Sylvain said sleepily, his head still full of dreams and sunbeams, which he knew for a fact were Felix’s least favorite things. “Is Ingrid here already?” He’d been camping out in Fraldarius waiting for their friend to arrive so that they could begin the long journey to Garreg Mach, with the Millennium Festival fast approaching and the roads being dangerous and uncertain for solo travelers.</p><p> </p><p>“Ingrid? No, who said anything about Ingrid, she can catch up,” said Felix, glaring at Sylvain as if he were a fool for even asking. “We need to go to Western Fódlan; Annette’s in trouble.”</p><p> </p><p>Sylvain shot up at this, sunbeams flying from his brain and sunlight piercing straight into his eyes as he readjusted away from the window, blinking painfully.</p><p> </p><p>“Dominic’s been attacked?” he said, his heart beating faster than he cared to admit. They’d had problems in that region of Faerghus since the war had begun, and Empire troops were making increasing progress up the western coast. Sylvain and Felix had seen firsthand the devastation to the western territories during a recent campaign at the border. Sylvain’s stomach flipped at the idea of any of his former classmates being caught in similar conditions, but if he was concerned at such a prospect, Felix was evidently doing total acrobatic routines inwardly. Outwardly, he was unable to stay still, pacing in front of the couch where Sylvain had been so delightfully unconscious moments before.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t think – my father would have told – it’s possible there was an approaching attack, but,” Felix started. Sylvain was getting a little dizzy watching him pace, so he leaned back against the couch cushions and stared at the ceiling instead. Felix continued, “It’s more likely that her uncle won’t let her. She wasn’t clear. But if he’s reading all her correspondence, then it makes – I told her she should have stayed in Fhirdiad. I told her she could have stayed<em> here </em>.”</p><p> </p><p>“Buddy,” Sylvain said, finally looking over to Felix, who had walked over to a potted plant in the corner and was busily shredding one of the leaves between his fingers. “I think this might go faster if you picked one sentence and stuck with it.”</p><p> </p><p>“<em> She sent me a letter </em> , okay?” Felix said, dropping the tiny shreds of leaf and walking over to Sylvain again, flinging a piece of a paper outward at him. “And it’s <em> wrong </em> and we have to go to Dominic immediately.”</p><p> </p><p>Sylvain took the letter from him and stared at it skeptically. It was creased from where it had been folded neatly into thirds. The paper was tinged pink and, unless he was mistaken, scented with roses. Sylvain suddenly matched Felix’s urgency to get on the road – the sooner they were assured Annette was safe, the sooner he could start making fun of Felix about this <em> forever </em> – and he quickly smoothed out the letter and began to read Annette’s bubbly, loopy handwriting.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Dear Felix, </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em> I hope you are keeping yourself safe, as always. I was horrified to read your account of the battle at Gaspard. Is it selfish of me to be glad to hear you have been reassigned a more flexible post? At the very least, I am glad to hear you will have time to travel to Garreg Mach next month; I imagine it will be a small reunion regardless but it would feel particularly empty if you weren’t there. </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em> For myself, I continue to work to convince my uncle that such a reunion is important for me. My new tack is to tell him it might be a good way to find a husband – ha! Perhaps you can let me know if Sylvain is available. My uncle has few knights to provide as escort, so I might see if I can join a merchant caravan heading in that direction. That does make the convincing trickier, but I’m determined to see you all, and things have been at such a stalemate that travel does seem a possibility. </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em> I made some cinnamon cookies last week and thought of you. They weren’t very sweet. You probably still wouldn’t have liked them. I don’t know why I thought of you.  </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em> As you can tell, my life holds little excitement these days. Write back soon. Stay alive. </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em> xoxoxo, </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em> Annette Fantine Dominic </em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“Wow, if she wants to marry me she really must be in trouble,” Sylvain said, squinting at the letter. “I mean, she’s pretty cute – if you wanted to put in a good word for me I’m sure I could do worse.”</p><p> </p><p>“What are you blathering about?” Felix demanded, snatching the letter back from Sylvain. “How can you think of <em> women </em> at a time like this?”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, just one woman,” Sylvain pointed out mildly. “The woman who wrote the letter that you just gave to me. And asked me to read.” He sat up a bit straighter, reaching for the letter again, which Felix pulled out of his reach. “I’m sorry, why is Annette in trouble? She seems fine to me,” Sylvain prompted.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you <em> blind </em> ? Everything about the letter is all wrong,” Felix snapped. “There’s absolutely no updates on her estate’s cats, she didn’t draw <em> any </em> pictures of our former classmates on the back –”</p><p> </p><p>“Wait, how many of these letters has she written you?” Sylvain interrupted. Felix ignored him.</p><p> </p><p>“She’s <em> clearly </em> writing this under duress because her worthless uncle won’t let her come to the reunion. And <em> look </em>,” he said, unfolding the letter and sticking it under Sylvain’s nose. “She’s written some sort of - - distress signal! At the bottom!”</p><p> </p><p>Sylvain scanned the bottom of the page again, trying not to get distracted by how Annette still dotted her i's with hearts in her signature. “You mean the ‘xo-xo-xo’ part?” he asked hesitantly, not quite believing this was how the conversation was going.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes! I don't know what it means, but it’s like something out of one of those godawful books she and Ashe were always making me read,” Felix said, taking the letter back and squinting at it “If I could just figure out what it’s a reference to – she needs to make a quick exit, perhaps? X-it? Is it a drawing of me fighting soldiers off?” He put the letter down. “The only thing to do is to go to Dominic and find out ourselves, and clearly, time is of the essence.”</p><p> </p><p>Sylvain thought he had covered his face with a pillow fast enough to mask the laugh, but the look Felix gave him was so poisonous that he knew he couldn’t play his uncontrollable snort of laughter off as a cough of concern.</p><p> </p><p>“What are you guffawing at? This is serious!” Felix said, and he really did look worried, and Sylvain would have felt bad except it made the whole thing even funnier.</p><p> </p><p>“Felix, I would die for you on a battlefield and live for you in peacetime,” Sylvain said solemnly, “But have you<em> ever </em> written a letter to an actual, human woman before?”</p><p> </p><p>Felix blinked at him angrily. “I write to Ingrid on occasion,” he said defensively.</p><p> </p><p>“That explains a lot,” Sylvain muttered. Looking back at his friend, he reached for the letter again, and Felix reluctantly handed it over. “It’s not code, Felix, it’s a common abbreviation. Haven’t you ever seen a girl sign a letter like this before? The letters I get all the time, for example?”</p><p> </p><p>“Those are drivel, why would I read those,” Felix snapped. He was curious, though, and desperate to know the answer – Sylvain could tell by the way he stopped fidgeting, instead crossing his arms and giving Sylvain a sideways glance. “If you know what it means, though – is Annette in trouble?”</p><p> </p><p>“She’s in so much trouble,” Sylvain said, more to himself, but he corrected course when he saw Felix flinch. “She’s <em> fine </em>, Felix. X’s and O’s are just shorthand for hugs and kisses. Annette’s blowing kisses to you from across the continent. I agree it’s weird, but you probably don’t need to show up with an army at her doorstep.”</p><p> </p><p>Sylvain pressed the pillow against the bottom half of his face again, peering over it to look at Felix’s complete breakdown over this news. Felix took the letter again, his entire face flushing, and stared at it, wordless sounds coming out of his mouth but refusing to cohere into a sentence.</p><p> </p><p>Finally he blurted out, “That <em> can’t </em> be right. Annette doesn’t – she has no interest in –  the last time I saw her, I thought she was going to hug me goodbye, but instead she burst into tears and ran away.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, well, absence makes the heart grow fonder,” Sylvain said with a shrug. “Or maybe fondness was why she was crying in the first place. It’s unexpected, I’ll grant you. She always seemed so smart to me.”</p><p> </p><p>“If you tell <em> anybody </em> about this conversation,” Felix started, but his threat was cut off by Sylvain finally standing, stretching his arms over his head with a yawn, and walking to the door.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s absolutely the first thing I'm bringing up at this reunion dinner,” Sylvain said cheerfully. “I can’t wait to hear Mercedes laugh again, and this will definitely do the trick.” He stopped in the doorway, looking over his shoulder. “Are you just going to stand there or are you ready to go? If you send a message to Ingrid while I pack, we can be on the road in an hour.”</p><p> </p><p>“On the road?” Felix said, frowning. “But you just said –”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t think your lady fair is sending you secret messages, no,” Sylvain said, ignoring how Felix’s hand drifted to an imaginary sword at his waist when he heard such a term used for Annette. “But she said she’s having trouble getting an escort to Garreg Mach, right? You could just read the things she’s actually telling you, Felix. Not everything is hidden between the lines.”</p><p> </p><p>“I mean,” Felix stumbled, looking down at the letter. “She didn’t actually ask for my help.”</p><p> </p><p>Sylvain smiled broadly. “She probably wants to collect on those hugs, though,” he said. “We leave in an hour.”</p><p> </p><p>He left Felix lingering in the sitting room, silently clutching the letter against his chest as if it were actually Annette, and not shorthand and stand-ins for everything Annette was to him.</p><p> </p><p>Sylvain decided he would give Felix a couple of months before he gleefully started telling this story to every member of their acquaintance, preferably with exaggerated details and, if possible, a dramatic reading of the letter in question. Two months, maybe three.</p><p> </p><p>It was only fair. Those two had a lot of hugs to get through first.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Annette is so surprised to see them on her doorstep that she bursts into tears and runs away again. Felix gives up trying to figure out anything ever again.</p><p> </p><p>(I also wrote a drabble about kisses this week! I'll post it later. They're a matched set I guess.)</p><p> </p><p>  <a href="https://twitter.com/Rose3Writes"> I'm on twitter! That's pretty cool. </a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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